Born To Be
by Wolf's Demon
Summary: Déjà vu and vivid dreams have always been a confusing part of Seren Lewis’ life, but now that Enterprise has entered the Expanse, things begin to make sense as she finds out who she was born to be. OC centric story. Reviews welcome.
1. Chapter One

Déjà vu and vivid dreams have always been a confusing part of Seren Lewis' life, but now that Enterprise has entered the Expanse, things begin to make sense as she finds out who she was born to be. O/C centric story. Reviews welcome.

Disclaimer : Paramount owns Star Trek: Enterprise and all characters save for Seren Lewis, who is my creation.

A/N : I've had this character running round in my head for too long. I've tried to fit her into a story too many times and decided that the easiest genre to fit her in was Enterprise. This piece is set early in Season Three, and is NOT going to be a Trip/OC… at least that's the intention!

Rating is for mild language.

As usual I must dedicate my piece… this one is for the team at 574 (Wythenshawe) – you know who you are! Thank you all for you friendship and support over the last six months, and for helping me realize who I was born to be! I'll miss you all!

**Chapter One**

The console in front of me flickers and finally comes to life. A small frown passes over my face; someone should have fixed the problem with the power flow by now, but I'll be damned if it's my look out. I've got a thousand and one things to do already, not to mention the Away Mission Report for T'Pol. I make a note of the continuing problem in the appropriate file and settle back to work on the task given to me by Commander Tucker, reviewing some simulations that keep failing. Already bored with the details, Tucker's convinced the problem is in Lieutenant Reed's mathematics, so it falls to me to spot the errors. Oh, the joys of being a lowly Crewman………

Engineering's chaos as usual, and everyone is busy. Some people are working in groups, like Tucker and Hess with a bunch of crewmen, and others are working alone - like myself. I alter my screen to its usual settings, yellow text on a black screen, nice and soft on the eyes when you're staring at six billion and one digits and mathematical signs. Honest. But after a time the noise and activity of Engineering fades away and I become lost in hundreds of intricate calculations. A tune fixes itself in my head, something my roommate had been listening to last night, something I can't even place. I hum it to myself, fingers of my left hand idly tapping along to the beat as my eyes try to track down the errors, digits of my right hand altering digits on the screen.

A sound of irritation makes me realise that Tucker is talking to me - or trying to. I look up, apologise quickly and report my progress, which is slow. He nods, gives me that cheeky grin of his and walks off to check on someone else. I smile to myself. For a nutter, the guy is alright really. He sure as hell knows these engines inside and out anyway, and he's not a bad team-leader either.. But somehow, I've never been completely comfortable in his presence. His bright blue eyes, which have been known to make most of the female crew members go cuckoo whenever he looks at them, give me the freaks. My room-mate thinks I'm nuts. Personally, I think she's nuts. Mind you, when we set out on this voyage, she had the hots for Ensign Mayweather, our esteemed boomer and pilot. I suppose he is kinda cute if you go for that 'little boy lost' thing, but not me. Anyway, she moved her affections on from Mayweather to Tucker a few months ago……… but then, she doesn't really seem the commitment type!

Some part of my mind wanders as another concentrates on work. An ability I was born with, honed through years of combined video and homework sessions. I think of my family, killed in the devastation of the Xindi attack, and the thoughts come close to bringing a tear to my eye. I wasn't the only crew member to have lost family on that cursed day - I knew that Tucker had lost his sister, and someone in Security had lost an Uncle - but I lost everyone dear to me - mother, father and my brother, nine years my junior. We'd lived in London, England, for most of my life. We moved to the US eight years and seven months ago - long enough for me to fulfill my dreams of becoming a Starfleet officer. Though the Gods only know why that was my dream, but then I've never aspired to ordinary ideals. Never. Always on the move, I could never settle to anything. Going to Warp aboard _Enterprise_ for the first time just felt so right. I sigh now, enjoying the feeling of _Enterprise_ moving smoothly at Warp Three. Another uncanny ability of mine - I can tell what speed the ship is traveling at without the need for displays. But I could never settle down, not until we moved out of space dock and away into the far reaches of space. Maybe someday I'll understand why.

I shake my head to clear my thoughts. Time for my break. I'm getting nowhere fast with these calculations, and T'Pol will be expecting that report… A mug of coffee should help me concentrate again. I get like this when I think of my family, pointless anger swathing me in a cocoon from which I cannot break. Every part of me longs to track down the Xindi weapon and vaporize it before everyone on _Enterprise_ – the closest people I have to a family now – must feel as I do. No one should know of the emotion tied with such a loss, of the sheer rage that eats at the soul because there was nothing I could do to save them, of the pointless frustration that builds up inside until it explodes in a torrent of fury triggered by some minor thing that has irritated me. Then come the tears, the black depression that leaves me hollow inside, until that void is refilled by the wrath and frustration... It is a vicious circle that many of us aboard _Enterprise_ struggle to endure.

I stand quickly – I really need to block out these thoughts if I am to get any work done before the shift ends - and I am assaulted by a wave of dizziness that sweeps over me. Must have stood up _too_ quickly. I blink rapidly, trying to force the faintness to pass. The pain, which I had half been expecting, hits me like an old-fashioned freight train with a suddenness that never fails to astound me. My eyeballs scream with the pressure of the instantaneous migraine, my skull throbbing. I stagger along the upper-balcony, clutching blindly at the handrail, the heel of my right hand locked in my eye-socket in a vain attempt to numb the agony in my pounding head. Someone shouts my name, I can't tell who, and my mind cannot cause my body to respond. I stop moving, knowing yet unable to prevent what will happen next. Sure enough, the usual outer-body feeling occurs, I hover lazily above the drive engines, watching as first my body goes rigid, as stiff as a board, before falling forward. My consciousness screams silently as my body pitches lethally over the balustrade to the deck plating below.

Sudden peace cushions me. All should be in darkness, or pain ought to be screaming through every nerve in my body. But there is little to suggest that I have just fallen eighteen feet to the ground; I can hear nothing but the melodious hum that calls to me so quietly. The planet I see rotates calmly on its axis, so like Earth, covered in vast oceans and smaller land masses. Candy floss clouds float in the skies around the world, white and wispy… The tune becomes almost a song, a voice calling me… calling me… calling…

Deep inside my body, feeling stirs again. Intense agony shrieks through my very bones, my head pounds again so violently that I long for the voice to silence so that I may have some peace. The pain is enough to make my soul return, however reluctantly, to its shell, and I am conscious enough to notice the pairs of feet gathering about my broken body, the babble of terrified voices, someone calling for Phlox and a medical team… Nothing else registers then, and at last I may descend lazily into that black abyss that is pure, blissful nothingness beyond the threshold of which neither the voice nor the pain can reach… 


	2. Chapter Two

Disclaimer : Paramount owns Star Trek: Enterprise and all characters save for Seren Lewis, who is my creation.

A/N : Please review! Rating is for mild language and milder implications.

**Chapter Two**

I see stars. Not the "Wo I'm dizzy!" type of stars, but a real constellation as if I am floating in the vast cold vacuum of space itself. I study it in detail, it looks like… like a bunch of stars. I was never one for seeing pictures in clouds or recognising constellations. Even the Plough, one of the most familiar constellations seen from Earth, looks more like a huge saucepan to me. I suppose, if pushed, I would liken these solar bodies to a cat. It has one star that could be the nose, a convenient triangle that could be an ear, enough stars to create a stick body, legs and tail. A three-legged cat…

I'm unconscious. I realise the fact as my mind drifts from this scene to vague and random dreams… the nightmare of the Xindi attack, a delusion that I'm one of Phlox's pets trapped in a cage, a dream that I am held at phase-pistol point by my room-mate, a fantasy that I am the leader of some random people that are almost human and yet not… The list goes on, I forget the details of them. Suffice to say I am swamped by emotion even in my unconscious state…

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I couldn't tell you what hits me first - the expected "Where am I?" feeling or the desire to see the closest thing we have to daylight - that is the cruel artificial light that stings the eye and hurts the brain. Perhaps they both hit simultaneously. All I know is that opening my eyes is a painful process, taking several minutes for my vision to focus… on Captain Archer's face.

"Captain?" I utter quietly, my throat dry and croaky.

"Easy, Crewman." He lays a hand on my shoulder. Is he trying to comfort me? It's at this point that I realise that both Doctor Phlox and Commander Tucker are also standing over me, the former looking pleased, the latter looking quite concerned.

"Quite some trip, Crewman." He quips, a nervous smile playing at his lips. I have to smile.

"Sorry if I scared ya." I try to emulate his Southern drawl without much success, nevertheless he grins appreciatively. Phlox and Archer exchange a few words, most of which go over my head, that - though it takes me several moments to realise it - is thumping heavily, as though someone has hit me with a wrench.

"Take it easy." Archer smiles at me, before leaving Sickbay. Phlox offers me one of his wide, amphibian-like smiles and wanders off too, leaving me alone with my head of section, one Commander "Trip" Tucker. I sigh, emit a languid yawn, before grinning bravely at Tucker. He grins in return, pulling up a stool. Why is he staying? I'm not sure, but his company is welcome. Somehow, deep within myself, I feel so alone. Perhaps it is because we share the same sentiments over the Xindi, perhaps it's because he, too, feels that inherent loneliness brought on by that sense of loss and helplessness.

His face smoothes into a smile that would make my room-mate go weak at the knees, but only makes me roll my eyes. I don't want his pity. I know what happened, though he does not. A vision, something I have grown accustomed to in my not-so-long life. Something that attacks on the odd occasion like a lightening bolt.

"What happened?" He asks softly, his hand touching mine. Again, I have to smile.

"You couldn't believe me, if I told you………" I laugh, coughing because my throat is so dry. Tucker, recognising this, pours me a glass of water. I push him away as he tries to help me drink. I'm not completely useless - yet. "I'm tired, Commander, can we talk about this some other time?"

He nods. "Another time." The echo makes me realise that he will not forget it.

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"You're not gonna let me forget the other day, huh?" I pick up a piece of cheesecake with a sigh. Next in line, Tucker picks up a slice of pecan pie. Eugh…….. some people have no taste………

"You pitched straight over the balcony." He grins. "Not exactly forgettable, 'specially since things have been so dull recently. So………"

"So what?" I can't help but tease him. I'm not one for messing with the senior staff, but my C/O has been paying me too much attention since I was allowed to leave Sickbay. Ordered to report to Phlox twice a day, I've not been allowed to return to duty yet.

"So what happened?"

"Dizzy." I shrug. "I don't remember much else."

He looks at me sideways, not believing me for an instant. Was I expecting him to? Perhaps. Some part of me longs to tell him everything, from start to finish, but most of me senses that he cannot understand. I'm touched by his concern - who wouldn't be? - yet all this attention is drawing whispers and furtive glances from my crewmates. And they have nothing to do with me "pitching straight over the balcony" as my C.O. so politely put it. If gossip were true, you'd have thought I'd have fallen from the walkway straight into Tucker's arms… or his bed… The very idea makes me shake my head, prompting a "What?" from Tucker.

"Nothing." I reply, tucking into my dinner. The food tastes like cardboard, but then nothing tastes good these days. It is all I can do to bring myself to eat most days, but today it gives me a reason not to talk. The silence between us grows strained and uncomfortable, forcing me to swallow my mouthful and ask "Did anyone get round to fixing that problem with the power-flow to the upper terminals?"

"Checked it out myself." Tucker answers, after taking a sip of coffee. "Couldn't find a damn thing wrong with it!"

"Strange." I comment, for want of anything else to say.

"Aye." He sighs heavily. "So what happened?"

"I just switched on the terminal…"

"That's not what I meant, an' ya know it." Tucker interrupts quickly.

Frustration bites through me, sharp and painful. When will he learn to let sleeping dogs lie? He will never understand, and most likely march me straight back to Sickbay, claiming that the fall has given me concussion or something. How can I explain the visions I see? The planets along our route that I have often seen in dreams or moments of deja-vu? But as my eyes meet his for a fleeting moment, I see through all his charade of quips and cheeky grins, see the need in him to know and understand what made me fall, what exactly I am hiding from him. Part of him cries out to be strong again, to make some form of patch for the gaping hole that his sister's death has left in him…

"I told you before," the sane part of me speaks before the irrational part can take control of my voice-box. Whatever it is that Tucker needs, I cannot bring myself to play the damsel in distress, "you couldn't even begin to believe me."


End file.
